PROVIDENCE, RI – A new exercise, highlighting the ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to meet pandemic threats, will be tested this week at the Munich Security Conference. The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health collaborated with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Foreign Policy in the design and launch of “Biosecuring Against ‘Smart’ Pandemics”, an exercise aimed at simulating Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled biotechnology and biosecurity to stop future threats.
Pandemic Center leaders Beth Cameron and Wilmot James served as advisors for the effort, collaborating with CEPI and Foreign Policy toward accelerating immediate action to achieve the 100 Days Mission, an ambitious aim spearheaded by CEPI and embraced by G7 and G20 leaders to respond to a novel threat in as little as 100 days following viral identification.
The simulation event also seeks to explore how to prevent accidental and deliberate misuse of AI in vaccine design and pandemic preparedness efforts, and better use the technology to promote equitable access to both lifesaving tools and risk mitigation technologies and oversight.
“AI is developing rapidly. It’s challenging to envision - much less truly get ahead of - the risks and hazards it may pose in the future,” said Wilmot James, Senior Advisor to the Brown University Pandemic Center. “The solution is to design new AI-enabled biotechnologies with biosecurity and biosafety top of mind. The security community must also work hard to reduce the threat of criminals and terrorists using these technologies to cause harm.”
Beth Cameron, also a Senior Advisor to the Brown University Pandemic Center, said, “Pandemic risks are increasing, and with them broader societal harms. Achieving the 100 Days Mission will require tremendous innovation. Alongside that innovation, there is an unprecedented opportunity to pivot to promote and fund biosafety and biosecurity as an integral component of biodesign.”
Biosecurity by Design as an Integral Component of AI-Enabled Biotechnology
AI is significantly accelerating the promise that the world can prepare for any threat, with the major promise of improving pathogen detection, strengthening global early warning systems, accelerating vaccine design, optimising clinical trials and development, and enhancing biomanufacturing processes and attributing outbreak aetiology. At the same time, AI poses a significant risk of grave harm if harnessed and misused deliberately or accidentally across sectors, including within the field of vaccine development and pandemic preparedness and response. At this critical moment of AI development, this simulation is a timely way to explore how the world can both accelerate its applications for broad societal benefit while simultaneously preventing misuse and reducing emerging risks.
The event will run as a closed session at the Munich Security Conference for invited biosecurity and health experts working across the pandemic preparedness space. Attendees will be encouraged to share their perspectives which will be summarized in a forthcoming report.